At home on TV
Wades have a home-flipping project with HGTV.
LOS ANGELES — Dwyane Wade not only has made South Florida his home for more than a decade, but now will move into remaking a South Florida home.
HGTV has announced a new project for the Miami Heat guard and his actress wife, Gabrielle Union, for the cable network’s 2016 lineup.
The new show, listed in the network’s release as, “Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade Project.” with a yet-to-be-announced premiere date, apparently will be a celebrity version of the network’s popular duo of married house flippers Tarek and Christina El Moussa and their Flip or Flop program.
“We’ll see how it goes,” Wade said before Wednesday night’s game against the Los Angeles Lakers at Staples Center. “It depends on kind on if it’s going to start off as an episode. But it depends on if we want to cut it up, if we want to make a series out of it. All that stuff is still going to be finalized at a later date. But right now we’re green-lighted to get our show going.”
According to the cable network’s description of the Wade-Union vehicle, “Actress Gabrielle Union and Miami Heat player Dwyane Wade are beginning a passion project — flipping homes. Follow along as they renovate, revitalize and resell a home in a suburban Florida neighborhood.”
Wade said the project is a natural fit.
“It’s just our love for HGTV,” he said. “We watch it all the time. We’re big fans of all them guys. So we had an opportunity because of our passion of the showand it went from there. It’s something fun and something that we both are excited to take on this summer at some point. So it’ll be cool.”
The house to be made over and flipped has yet to be selected.
“That’s one thing that HGTV and the whole team is figuring out, in Florida, where we’re going to do it,” Wade said. “And then we’ll go from there.
“We haven’t started. Our schedules have been a little busy since we thought about this. But when our schedules open up, the season’s over, andwe figure out a time to do it, we’ll get to it.”
Wade has long been involved in the fashion industry, including his Chinabased sneaker line and a sock and neckwear line.
Now there will be a design challenge of a larger scale. He said there are no preset notions about the approach that will be taken, other than he has watched enough of the network to appreciate the challenges of the project.
“I don’t know. We’ll see. I know it’s not easy,” he said. “But it’s a good challenge to do it. And Iwant to see kind of how it is. We see all the kind of outtakes of what goes on a little bit and what they put together. But I’m sure it’s tough behind the scenes.
“That’s why we teamed up with HGTV. I mean they’re amazing at what they do. We also wanted to make sure that we pick a location in Florida that we can bring something to it, bring our style to it, bring what we’ve learned by traveling through life to it, as well.”
Wade and Union, star of the BET drama series Being Mary Jane, were married in South Florida on Aug. 30, 2014.
In the wake of the HGTV announcement, Wade posted on his Twitter account, “My new summer workout.”
“I’m looking forward,” he said after a morning workout at Staples Center. “It’s going to be tough; it’s going to be a challenge. And you always look forward to a challenge.”
So now, instead of deciding whether to pull up for a jumper or attack the rim, the ultimate choice could come down to . . . granite or marble?
“That’s for the wife to decide,” he said with a smile. “But sometimes you got to feel the neighborhood out, got to feel the house out, and then costs.”